The Folkways Collection

The Folkways collection captures the evolution of modern day country and bluegrass music through its field recordings of rural American music earlier in this century. The focus of this program is on the music and artists of the southern country and bluegrass genres; music from Tennessee, Kentucky and the Appalachians. Artists such as the New Lost City Ramblers, the Carter Family and Doc Watson are featured.

Born of a renowned musical family, Pete Seeger's name is synonymous with the post-War American folk music revival. A contemporary of and collaborator with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger casts his own long shadow over the folk music genre. This program overviews Seeger's life and music, including his work with Guthrie, and features recent interviews with Seeger and those who have known him well.

This episode is the first of three programs which look at how Folkways artists have used music as an instrument for social activism. This particular program focuses on musicians whose songs inspired those struggling for improved working conditions and wages. The works of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Cisco Houston, have all played a vital role in the labor movement, and we celebrate that history in this episode.

The second of three programs on music as an instrument of social activism, this episode pays particular attention to material in the Folkways collection which documents and reflects the civil rights struggle, especially through the ten year period between 1955 and 1965. The program draws on such Folkways albums as "Voices of the Civil Rights Movement (Black American Freedom Songs, 1960-1966) and an audio-verite recording of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington entitled "We Shall Overcome." Original interviews with Bernice Johnson Reagon of the SNCC Freedom Singers and one-time Black Panther activist Angela Davis blend with archival interviews from Smithsonian Folkways to recapture the spirit of the struggle and to provide contemporary context to its meaning.

Moses Asch was committed to supporting and reflecting the struggle for equality by American women through a number of the artists featured on Folkways, among them Peggy Seeger. This Program reviews the material on this subject and features interviews with prominent contemporary female artists, reflecting on the contribution of Folkways to the women's movement.

One of the great treasures stored within the Folkways collection is the body of children's music recorded by such artists as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Ella Jenkins. The Program takes us on a voyage of joyful rediscovery, aided by the perspectives of Seeger, Jenkins, and others.

A significant section of the Folkways collection is devoted to documentaries and oral history. This program gives the listener a sense of the remarkable material contained within these recordings and a sense of the foresight which Moses Asch demonstrated in preserving this material for future generations.

This is the second of two programs dedicated to exploring Moses Asch's field recordings of ethnic music from around the world, incorporating both original recordings from the Folkways collection and more contemporary examples. This episode also includes interviews with some of the notable artists who have led the parade toward a truly global sound in music, such as Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead.

Poetry held a special place in Moses Asch's heart, and the Folkways collection includes original recordings of some of the most influential poets of our time, such as Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes and Leonard Cohen. This program reviews these unique artists--and many others--as captured on vinyl.

It seems almost everybody who was destined to become a somebody to the Beat Generation turned up in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, and, of course, Moses Asch and Folkways were right in the thick of it. This is the first of two programs in the series dedicated to this fascinating era, revealing the personalities, rivalries and creations of some of the most influential people of the time: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Phil Ochs, to name a few.